To be honest, doesn't Sidious' supremacy only revolve around the Banite Sith Lords? That would also make sense in the context of Lucas' canon. Sidious can still be the most powerful Sith Lord in Legends in Lucas' canon(1000 years), but also allow other Sith characters to hold that title under the banner of another Sith Order.
__________________ RealistRacism: "Sheevites, much like the Banites, were meant to increase in power with each member. From Lightsnake to Gideon to Azronger, this was supposed to be the case. However, knowledge must've been lost in some kind of Gravid-like incident, as Az turned out to be a mid-tier debater with a sub-par track record, sh!itting all over Tempest's legacy. Sad."
Registered: Aug 2016
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
That makes complete sense, yeah. Plus, Sidious actually has accolades proclaiming his superiority among the Banite line specifically. So we have specific quotes for the Banite line, and we have more vague quotes that could easily just mean he's the greatest Sith in THAT order.
"(...)Studying the dark side of the Force to become more powerful(...)"
Observe that he becomes more powerful due to his studies of the dark side. In this line, it isn't implied his growth in the Force(Force strength), but his growth in dark side knowledge.
__________________ RealistRacism: "Sheevites, much like the Banites, were meant to increase in power with each member. From Lightsnake to Gideon to Azronger, this was supposed to be the case. However, knowledge must've been lost in some kind of Gravid-like incident, as Az turned out to be a mid-tier debater with a sub-par track record, sh!itting all over Tempest's legacy. Sad."
This is how I see the major Sith Lords:
1. Vitiate/Valkorion
2. Exar Kun
3. Darth Sidious/4. Darth Plagueis(not decided)
5. Darth Bane
6. Darth Krayt
__________________ RealistRacism: "Sheevites, much like the Banites, were meant to increase in power with each member. From Lightsnake to Gideon to Azronger, this was supposed to be the case. However, knowledge must've been lost in some kind of Gravid-like incident, as Az turned out to be a mid-tier debater with a sub-par track record, sh!itting all over Tempest's legacy. Sad."
There's plenty of quotes that aren't vague in the slightest regarding Sidious' powers, and clearly refer to all of history and not just recent history (Sidious has specific quotes for those as well; they're obviously distinct).
"Yoda went after Palpatine in the empty Senate chamber, but could not defeat the most powerful Sith Lord in history."
"Instead, Yoda faces the dark side's fury, channeled by the most powerful Sith Lord in history."
"By himself, he could not hope to defeat the most powerful Sith Lord the galaxy had ever known."
"Emperor Zaarin? The idea isn't as ludicrous as it sounds. Demetrius Zaarin gambled everything on an audacious coup d'état and nearly killed the most powerful Sith Lord the galaxy has ever known."
"With the galaxy now ripe for conquest, the Emperor has become the most powerful Sith Lord of all and a master of the Dark Side of the Force, ordering the extermination of the Jedi Order with the aid of his apprentice, the deadly Darth Vader."
"Meet Darth Sidious – the most powerful Sith Master who ever lived."
"The Emperor was completely in concert with the dark side of the Force. He was the most powerful Sith who had ever existed."
"Yoda was a master at masking his emotions, but not even he could hide them from the greatest Sith Lord ever known."
"He had succeeded where all others had failed in taming the Dark Side."
"It quickly became clear to Luke that this decrepit and seemingly defenseless old man was masterfully adept in the ways of the Dark Side of the Force. Indeed, as Vader had warned, the Emperor had become the Dark Side's most powerful expression."
"As Luke's father once said, during the time he served the greatest known wielder of the Dark Side of the Force, the Emperor..."
There are some other quotes that are more vague in nature, but given the considerable repertoire of quotes touting him as the most powerful Sith Lord/master of the dark side ever, there's no reason to assume the more ambiguous quotes refer to a localised period of history instead of all of history.
Bane gets along with Nadd on this forum. After all you took his holocron.
By the way, you got your friend's Byss drain debunked respect thread's link address? Can you give it to me?
__________________ RealistRacism: "Sheevites, much like the Banites, were meant to increase in power with each member. From Lightsnake to Gideon to Azronger, this was supposed to be the case. However, knowledge must've been lost in some kind of Gravid-like incident, as Az turned out to be a mid-tier debater with a sub-par track record, sh!itting all over Tempest's legacy. Sad."
__________________ RealistRacism: "Sheevites, much like the Banites, were meant to increase in power with each member. From Lightsnake to Gideon to Azronger, this was supposed to be the case. However, knowledge must've been lost in some kind of Gravid-like incident, as Az turned out to be a mid-tier debater with a sub-par track record, sh!itting all over Tempest's legacy. Sad."
Registered: Aug 2016
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
A fair POV, but still, it's easy to argue that many of those quotes are referring only to the Sith Order that Sidious belonged to. Especially given feat comparisons, the easiest way to reconcile Sidious' GOAT quotes and Vitiate's (arguably) superior feats, is to say that Sidious was the greatest Banite Sith, not the greatest Sith period.
Now, I know you don't hold feats>accolades (which perplexes me, because this is the ONLY debate forum I've ever been in that treats accolades as facts and favors them over feats) but for someone who holds feats>accolades, this is the best option.
SunRazer, it would be an honor if you left the source names to these texts.
__________________ RealistRacism: "Sheevites, much like the Banites, were meant to increase in power with each member. From Lightsnake to Gideon to Azronger, this was supposed to be the case. However, knowledge must've been lost in some kind of Gravid-like incident, as Az turned out to be a mid-tier debater with a sub-par track record, sh!itting all over Tempest's legacy. Sad."
What about accolades made by characters whom are knowledgeable, such as Luke comparing Kun and Palps being the strongest sources of Dark Side energy ever known.
__________________ "Vader's pulse and breathing were machine-regulated, so they could not quicken; but something in his chest became more electric around his meetings with the Emperor; he could not say how. A feeling of fullness, of power, of dark and demon mastery -- of secret lusts, unrestrained passion, wild submission -- all these things were in Vader's heart as he neared his Emperor. These things and more."
They're available on either my DE Sidious RT or Azronger's super Sidious RT. Didn't you say you'd been through all of Sidious' RT's?
No, it isn't. The quotes are abundantly clear in what they say, and they have a very clear distinction from the quotes that do establish Sidious as the most powerful of the Banite Sith or the modern Sith. They're obviously distinct.
First of all, I hold Palpatine's feats in higher esteem.
Secondly, feats vary in reliability from medium to medium. Just compare the movies to most of the EU's works. Unless you can establish for me a perfect scaling system between different media, then objective statements should take precedence.
Obviously you can attack quotes for unreliability, inaccuracy, subjectivity, hyperbole, etc. but if they're objective and reliable, they're obviously the most valid thing to take. And if you apply them scientifically, you can pretty much always reconcile discrepancies between quotes without the need to introduce other factors. Those things come in when there's absolutely nothing else to help you distinguish.
Feats are perfectly fine if it's between two characters within the same medium. Once you start cross-comparing between media, it gets diluted. The other thing is that inconsistencies in feats are more common and more easily argued than inconsistencies in quotes, which also makes the latter more reliable as a measuring stick.
Last edited by SunRazer on Jan 9th, 2018 at 12:38 AM
Registered: Aug 2016
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
He wasn't making a direct comparison. He said that Sidious and Kun were the strongest focuses of DS energy he'd ever encountered. That doesn't even remotely equate to Kun being ~ Sidious. Despite my desire to boost ToR rankings, misinterpreting quotes like that only hinders the movement.
I flip between Ragnos and Nadd a lot, tbh. I don't think I'd add Darth Revan as one of the strongest Sith though, not the top 5 anyway. Top 10 probably, around Vader's level.
1: Let's assume your interpretation of the accolades is wholly correct, and mine isn't. His accolades are still challenged by any feats of comparable impressiveness to his own that come from other Sith Lords, which is pretty much the crux of a feats>accolades stance.
2: Which is your right, and I hold some of Sidious' feats above some of Vitiate's, and vice versa. It's all subjective, in that respect, hence why these debates happen in the first place.
Hence why I compare film novelization feats to other EU sources, rather than using the film versions specifically. The films are limited in what they can show, novels are not, and so in an EU debate, using the film's version of events is generally somewhat unreliable.
Of course, I'm not saying feats are never inconsistent, someone mentioned that to me earlier, and I said the same to him as I'm saying to you. The fact remains that feats are direct representations of a character's power, they are what can be easily seen, specifics are known about them, etc. If an "objective" statement from a sourcebook or Leland Chee came out stating that Darovit or Zayne Carrick was the most powerful Jedi in history, would we believe them, despite the fact that their demonstrations of power and skill are below those of many other characters, despite the fact Zayne was bested by Lucien Draay? The answer is that no reasonable person would assume a statement such as that would be inarguably correct, obviously using Darovit and Carrick is an exaggeration, but I'm trying to make a point. So there's no reasonable reason to assume accolades are 100% factual off hand.
Most feat comparisons come from the EU anyway, novels, comics, games, etc. Also, the ease with which one can argue "well that's inconsistent" means relatively little, and should have no bearing on a character ranking. Iirc, characters like Superman are stated to have no upper limit, yet we often see Superman show great strain, even when he's not in a setting that requires restraint, examples of things like this exist everywhere. Sometimes Superman is capable of pushing half the weight of a massive ship through space with help from Martian Manhunter, and sometimes he can (seemingly) casually benchpress the weight of Earth for days straight (both of which, iirc, are New 52 continuity). So these inconsistencies exist in practically every single mythos, Star Wars isn't an exception, yet still, every debate circle I've been in holds feats>accolades. So no, just because feats CAN be inconsistent, does not mean accolades automatically become a more valid measuring stick.
Registered: May 2007
Location: Best company on the planet
The most absurd part of the Sidious is factually the most powerful bad guy pre new trilogy actually makes debating null and void if these biased bunch of posters achieved their ultimate goal. Basically they want a source to tell them debating is irrelevant and just to wait on Pablo Hidalgo to tell them how to think.
Well that explains why you don't have Sidious above Vitiate, lol, and why I don't. I understand the difference in our thinking, we just don't agree (obviously).
Of course.
Yeah, I misspoke. The films are a bad example because they all have EU novelisations. Maybe TCW episodes that lack novelised counterparts would be a better example.
I don't see how accolades are any less direct or more open to interpretation than feats.
If there's nothing contradicting accolades, there is absolutely a reason to assume they're 100% factual. We dispute them on the grounds that there are a contradiction. If there's nothing else, why wouldn't we take given material that points to one character being stronger than another? If there were no accolades or any other material, we would resort to feats for comparison between characters, and that's fine as well. Heck, if there were absolutely no feats, no accolades, nothing else at all, I would accept author intent as a means of distinguishing between two characters in terms of power or whatever the topic was. You can't question anything until you have something to contradict or dispute it, naturally. So of course you can assume accolades are 100% factual until you have a good reason to question it. That goes for feats as well; I say they're inconsistent, but unless such an inconsistency actually arises, I can't dismiss a feat just because I don't like it. I have to have some sort of reasonable grounds (contradiction, circumstances, etc.) before I question it.
I personally assess both quotes and feats on a basis of accuracy (how accurate they are to/how well they fit in with other established facts, though this isn't relevant in a number of cases), reliability (how trustworthy the sources are, how many times we see the accolade being stated, whether or not we see the feat or accolade being contradicted, etc.), and from that I determine how valid the feats or accolades are.
EDIT: Now, when I say 100% fact, I don't mean gospel, just trustworthy. All accolades are open to dispute to scrutiny in the same way that feats are. Things like Sidious' supremacy just happen to have an overwhelming amount of reliability because they're reiterated on so many occasions across so many different times, sources and perspectives, such that even if every single narrator in those quotes was untrustworthy (we know that's not the case), the actual message would still be highly reliable.
Both Darovit and Zayne Carrick would never have such quotes taken seriously, first because they'd never be published (lol), and secondly because they're already contradicted. We already know such sentiments to be inaccuracies.
There are plenty of comic book debaters on the Vine who still go for accolades over feats, though to my understanding the general comic debating community has a more feats-based mentality.
But Star Wars is certainly not a consistent mythology (even within the EU), and this is just differing methods of attempting to construct a clear and consistent hierarchy with characters, something which, let's be honest, authors don't actually care about and never factored in when they wrote their works. So it's up to us, which is why we tolerate debate on whether feats or accolades are better.
The "every other debate circle" thing doesn't really mean much to me. That's an argumentum ad populum.
Last edited by SunRazer on Jan 9th, 2018 at 01:30 AM
Registered: Aug 2016
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
First, apologies for not quoting. I don't really debate here often, so I'm not really acquainted with the formatting.
1: Right. I understand where just about everyone on this forum comes from, I just disagree with way most of you guys rank the characters. Just a simple difference in thinking,
2:
3: Yeah, the TCW example is definitely better, imho. Since it kinda straddles the line between the EU and the films, in that it's designed to better fit the films, but is also a little bit beyond the films in regards to showing the power of individual characters.
4: Because a feat is a direct showing of a character's capabilities. Feats performed without circumstances surrounding them can be used to place a character accurately, feats performed with special circumstances can be used to do the same in different ways, or to better analyze and learn how the universe of tat mythos works, etc. An accolade is just a statement. Pablo Hidalgo could say Ahsoka>Vader if he wanted to, as an accolade in some sourcebook, but the feats demonstrated by them both, being direct manifestations of their individual power, obviously contradict that statement. Basically, I place characters more based on what I can see and analyze more in depth, rather than just what's said in some random sourcebook. Again, that's not to say I just disregard accolades altogether, I only disregard the ones I feel are contradicted by feats.
5: I think my above paragraph answers this as well.
6: Right, that's exactly my point. Accolades can be just as insane as feats, there's no reason to treat them as literal truth. I'm just pointing out the "what if" of those two characters being given accolades that would place them above the likes of Yoda or Sidious, and how based on what I've seen of this forum, those accolades would be treated.
7: Eeeh, tbh, I find CV to generally be pretty cancerous. More so than even this forum, lol.
Oh I agree completely with this, no mythology is entirely consistent, and there's no real answers concerning many of the topics that are debated here and elsewhere. Although I do wish authors would keep VS debates in mind sometimes, it would make things SOOOOO much easier for us, haha.
Fair enough, I was just pointing out what seems to be the general norm, and how KMC is an outlier.
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Personal sidenote, I kinda hope these last couple debates I've had in the past day or two (with you, Urs, ILS, among others) proves the forum that I'm not an idiot, and that I CAN actually debate. lol
Jan 9th, 2018 12:04 AM
